


Rise Up, Rise Up

by Suzume



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 75th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Haymitch Abernathy in the 75th Hunger Games, Minor Character Death, Minor Character(s), Original Character(s), Trust, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3587904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haymitch returns to the arena.  Twelve scenes from an alternate Third Quarter Quell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rise Up, Rise Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).



 

 

         "Haymitch Abernathy," Effie read with a hint of relief she was too late in noticing to hide.

         "I-" Peeta started.

         "Do you remember the conversation we had?" Haymitch growled to him in a tone that suggested he'd better.

         Peeta's lips twitched; his brow darkened. He let the word 'volunteer' die in his mouth.

 

 

         Haymitch and Katniss symbolically shook hands per procedure- any pair of tributes before any Games, a moment of familiarity in an era of change. District 12 sent them off with the three-fingered salute and everything was revolution and chaos again.

 

*****

 

         Katniss and Peeta were awake and out of their train compartments and watching another recording of some past Games. It didn't take Haymitch listening in much longer or wandering much closer to realize they were his Games. The sound of Maysilee's voice on tape refreshed the warped and faded record in his mind (was a possible for a memory to be played over too many times?).

         Sobriety suddenly felt a bridge too far. Thirteen was going to use the intel they'd provided to break the arena- that was their one chance to capture this lightning in a bottle. What was there left to do but to bring the outrage of the audience to a fever pitch and then hold on for rescue? Everyone didn't have to die.

         But that didn't mean that no one would die. There was no way to have a Games where no one died. Haymitch searched the kitchen for booze he knew had to be in their somewhere (it would have been easier to find if he'd have turned on a light, but he didn't want Katniss and Peeta coming in and stopping him).

         Not everyone knew about the rescue. As far as Haymitch knew, no one from One or Two had been informed, though certainly they couldn't be without their doubts that _something_ was occurring that wasn't normal aside from one or two young true believers who might not yet have been able to grasp at why. The Tens didn't know. The Nines didn't know. Haymitch wasn't sure how fully the pair from Six understood the details. And last he had heard, Shy and Valse in Five hadn't brought in their (relatively) junior victors, something that was very bothersome to Mags, he gathered.

         …But he hadn't informed Katniss or Peeta either. He told himself that Katniss was a poor actress who wouldn't be able to obscure what he knew. That the three of them were under the highest surveillance of any of the victors since the moment those two had held the berries in their hands. That they had to be told just the right way…

         He clutched a bottle in his hand and uncorked the top, drinking straight from its cool glass lips.

         In a few days nearly every friend he had might die, he might die himself, but Katniss- Katniss more than anyone else had to live.

         He finished the bottle and reached for another, then tiptoed in to watch his victors as they observed the conclusion of his Games with a bit of alcohol in him providing the smallest portion of protection- like a bandaid on a wound to his jugular.

         When Katniss started laughing though, he also found himself beginning to smile. She saw it then- something that he saw. They were alike. (He would die for that girl if it came to that)

 

*****

 

         Neither Peeta nor Haymitch were waiting in or beside their chariot when Katniss reached the bottom of the Remake Center. The tenor of the scene was miles away from the year before- mentors and tributes both gathered here and there in small groups talking. She caught sight of Haymitch first, casting about for the costume that partnered with hers. He looked comfortable where he was, engaged with a stern-looking woman with a messy ponytail Katniss didn't recognize (she must have been one of the mentors rather than the tributes today) and the morphlings from Six. The female morphling was giving Haymitch a look that put Katniss in mind of how Posy looked at Gale.

         She didn't feel comfortable interrupting that and kept looking for Peeta. …Though finding him being hugged into the bosom of a conspicuously large-chested woman (another mentor?), while Cecelia, the mother Effie liked, and a third woman with long gray braids stood by giggling didn't make Katniss any more inclined to barge in on him either, though for entirely different reasons. She hung back and stroked the neck of the nearest horse, content to remain alone rather than mingle with strangers she would be expected to kill anyway.

         The very old woman from District 4 was fussing over the very old man from District 8. The very old man from Seven was showing his fellow mentors from Five photographs of his grandson (his voice boomed enthusiastically out of his bent, aged body). Katniss took a measure of comfort in noticing the red-haired woman from Five sitting alone on her chariot, her arms wrapped around her legs. Some of the younger Twos turned away in obvious discomfort as the tributes from District 10 began kissing (Katniss could remember Akane's Games fairly well- she made her think of the girls who used to go to Cray, looking desperate and too young. Her father had pegged Akane for the victor halfway through). Even the mentoring victor from Ten, the woman who always kept her hair covered, stared at her feet.

         "…Does that make you uncomfortable?" Finnick Odair intruded into her thoughts (when had he snuck up so close without her noticing?), talking around something in his mouth. "Not me. Since we're all standing on the brink of destruction anyway, I figure, grasp for any last sweetness you can." He held out his palm, displaying a jumble of sugar cubes. "…Would you like one?"

         "No thank you," Katniss frowned, hoping he would take the hint and move on- there had to be plenty of people he knew here, why not talk to any of them?

         "I don't know if Haymitch has mentioned me to you at all, but he and I get on pretty well," Finnick rambled on, "And what little I've heard from him plus all I've seen of you two together gives me a more intriguing impression of you than I ever got from television. I have a feeling we even might have some things in common."

         "I don't have anything in common with you," Katniss told Finnick, blunt as ever, "We're both victors. That's it."

         Finnick wasn't so brash argue over it, but he didn't agree with her. "Well, we're also both here with mentors who love us," he answered languidly, but there was no need for him to press the matter to cause Katniss's face to flare red out of a combination of anger and embarrassment. "Hey, that's nothing to get so mad about," he went on as she turned to get in his face, "We're both lucky to have mentors like that. One less person here who wants to kill us. …And maybe you haven't had time to realize it yet, but there're a lot more positives to that besides."

         "I-"

         "Finnick, are you giving that girl a hard time?" another of the male mentors interrupted. Rather than Finnick's Capitol-affected speech, he had rather more of the typical accent of a Four and looked like he had would be right at home lounging about on a beach at one of those resorts wealthy Capitolites liked to frequent there. Maybe he would do to have hanging on your arm if you couldn't catch Finnick's roving eye.

         "We're talking about Haymitch."

         "We're not," Katniss contested.

         "You could talk to me, rather than about me," Haymitch suggested, joining them. "And as _charming_ as Katniss here can be, maybe you should invest some of your time in Peeta, Theo, since he's the one you're going to be working with come tomorrow."

         "I don't think Peeta's going to be a problem," Theo laughed, leaving Katniss to decide whether she had just been insulted.

 

         "Tributes mount up," came a voice through the speakers.

         "Up you go, sweetheart," Haymitch climbed on ahead and offered her his hand.

 

 

*****

 

         After something- their new Axov, probably, but it wasn't as if, in this situation, a person needed much to send them for a loop emotionally- upset Katniss upon their return to the twelfth floor, she slept in late the following morning. It was Haymitch's first instinct to complain, but he quashed it at the last moment and was glad that he had when, following a brief pep talk where he advised both Peeta and Katniss to mingle with their respective colleagues and try to make friends, he was alone in the elevator with her, having shrugged off Effie with a quip about how her leading him along made no sense as he was older than the babysitter.

         They stood, initially, side by side in silence. "I've got a lot of- Well, all my friends are here," Haymitch said, "I know people don't come easily to you. We've got to form some sort of alliance for the arena, so I hope you'll let me help you."

         "...I'm glad I'm here with you." She said it quietly, maybe even a hint reluctantly, but, all things considered, it would have struck him as insincere or uncharacteristic if she'd been more demonstrative about her feelings.

         Still, there was a part of him that had a hard time accepting, let alone reciprocating, those emotions. Watching Katniss interact with Peeta had convinced him that she was similar. Part of it was the Seam in them, he thought. Part of it was the hard things life had put them through- after you lost people who meant so much to you, opening up against wasn't so easy. …And then they were both just kind of ornery. Haymitch didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing.

         Katniss' eyes, which had softened with her words were starting to go hard again. It occurred to Haymitch that it was up to him to say something. To at least try and accept that hand she offered. …Or to turn it down if he chose and be one of _those_ mentors. Decades he had struggled with every aspect of the Games, yet he had never ceased to desire, for all the horrors a victor faced, to bring home some other child from District Twelve (One and Two were institutions; even Mags lost however many times more than she saved; he wouldn't begrudge Cecelia to Eight, Kelvin to Three, Akane to Ten, but how he had seethed with jealousy in his less proud moments watching Chrissie and Cecelia eat from the same plate, Kelvin and Beetee share some special handshake, Dace and Akane straight out fall into one another's arms…) and now he had not just one, but two. And Katniss just- Well, Katniss and Peeta met different things to him.

         Maybe their relationship just wasn't as complicated, but it was easier to express his feelings toward Peeta (Peeta was the opposite of Katniss in the way that he didn't just accept, but practically craved affection).

         "These days you're my first choice partner too," he replied and the cold in Katniss' eyes thawed just slightly. They looked at one another and shared the faintest sort of smile- lips barely beginning to crinkle, eyes lit from within by the fire of camaraderie.

         The elevator opened onto the basement where just two fellow tributes, Enobaria and Brutus, turned to note their arrival.

 

 

*****

 

         Haymitch suggested they split up to start, heading off to join Chaff at the spear-throwing station. As the knot-tying set up was unoccupied, Katniss went there first and suffered through another intrusion by Finnick, annoyingly skilled with the ropes, before winding up alongside Beetee and Wiress at the fire-starting station and sticking with them throughout the morning with only a brief intrusion from the sullen-sounding Phebe from District Five, who had arrived so late it was just then Katniss realized she was even present, while studying up on edible plants.

         Katniss reunited with Haymitch at lunch, only to find herself sucked into a large, more or less friendly group that seemed to see Haymitch as one of their own. She ended up seated between Haymitch and Wiress, which seemed safe enough. Chaff made self-deprecating jokes and Cecelia cut up food for her partner, who was called Woof. Blight had a heavy stutter and measured his words, but he could whistle like any number of birds- some familiar to Katniss and others unknown.

         The pair from Ten sat at a different table, but looked over at the large group frequently. The man from Five might have purposely chosen to sit furthest from anyone because trying to eat only made him sick again. The man from Nine remained alone in a different corner. The woman from Nine had still never shown up. Seeing as the other victors struck Katniss as weird and eccentric to varying degrees, how much of a misfit did you have to be to stay apart from even them? Even though the victors from One and Two didn't seem quite on the inside track of this group, they had settled in just one table over and occasionally made a remark to someone seated there. Katniss wondered if the strays were too stuck-up and had turned down an invitation or if they hadn't even been asked over in the first place.

         "Who're you looking for, Eve?" Woof asked.

         It took Katniss a moment to realize he was talking to her. "Um," she hesitated, "I'm Katniss. …But I'm not really looking for anyone. Just noticing who's sitting alone."

         "He's not a talker," Woof pointed his fork at the man from Nine. "Not Honey either, wherever she is. Hard to know what they think. …But Pal'd probably tell me."

         "I'm not good at reading people either," Katniss sighed.

         "Your mentor," Wiress spoke up, "Your mentor in particular…" she trailed off.

         "Yes," Beetee picked up her train of thought, "Haymitch is exceptionally adept at understanding people- though perhaps not quite as skilled at conveying what he picks up. In matters of such judgment, I recommend you attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt."

         Maybe that was an area where Haymitch could've benefited by spending more time with Peeta. A lot of the things Peeta felt and thought bothered Katniss, but he was consistently good at expressing them.

         Suddenly Katniss was struck by a wave of suspicion. All these people who had expressed positive opinions of Haymitch were victors that appeared to be his friends. Not to say they didn't actually think these things about him, but how did she know he hadn't put them up to it? …It was like the timing of the gifts he sent her in the Games before. He was yanking her around, urging her this way and that without words- like flooding a warren to make rabbits come out or something. This wasn't like the arena. They were sitting right next to each other. If there was something Haymitch wanted her to know, why couldn't he just come out and say it?

 

*****

 

         "What's Katniss wearing?" Haymitch inquired as Portia made a few last minute adjustments to his silver-trimmed suit.

         "The winning wedding dress," she looked up from her kneeling position and smiled at him, "But with a few adjustments."

 

 

         "Are you playing the father of the bride?" Akane inquired as he arrived to join some of his colleagues already waiting beside the stage, "Of course, you look like you'd make a pretty good groom yourself, Haymitch."

         "Hmm, maybe," he shrugged. Comparing the outfits sported by Dace and Akane he didn't see any reason for her to assume that the pair looks approach from the chariot ride was being carried through to the interviews.

         "She was trying to get a peek into Cinna's workspace earlier," Dace added.

         Then Katniss arrived, heralded by a hush falling over the chattering victors. Her face showed a familiar mix of tamped down fear beneath a harsh defensiveness as she took in the overall reaction to her outfit. The dress, although it wasn't anything like what a bride would wear back home in Twelve, flattered her. And for all that the situation that forced her to wear it was completely the opposite of the things a wedding should be and mean, looking at her, Haymitch felt a pang of hope that one day he might see her not necessarily as a bride, but as happy as one.

         "I can't believe Cinna put you in that thing," Finnick spoke up at last.

         Katniss replied sharply but it was with her own sort of kindness as her words were intended in Cinna's defense. She sincerely liked that man, Haymitch thought.

         As everyone made their last movements to fall properly into order, Katniss stepped up by his side. Haymitch almost wondered if he should be offering her his arm (she probably had heels on under that dress after all and heels were not her forte), but he didn't want to come off as patronizing. "You look good, sweetheart," he said simply.

        

 

         When she twirled for Caesar and the white wedding dress burned up to reveal the gray mockingjay-styled styled one underneath, she didn't look only good. Cinna had gone all out as usual, caution be damned. Little puffs of smoke were still drifting off of her garment as she passed Haymitch on the way to taking her seat.

         "This has to be a one of a kind experience if ever there was one," Caesar said, "As unlikely as it for any of you to have returned to stage as tributes, you've managed to become an active participant in two separate Quarter Quells, Haymitch!"

         "Well, seeing as that gives me the most Quarter Quell experience of anyone here, maybe that'll actually start seeming like a positive once I hit the ground," Haymitch replied laconically. "I'd be kind of hoping to learn that I am not just skilled or lucky but somehow downright unkillable right now…if it weren't for Katniss."

         "Ah, yes, Katniss had changed your life just like she's changed all of our lives, hasn't she?"

         "Seeing as I wasn't just her mentor, but wound up her neighbor and now I'm going to be her partner in the arena, I think none of you fans should be too upset if I say she changed my life just a tiny bit more."

         Caesar laughed. "Yes, I suppose both you and Peeta do have a right to make that claim."

         "…She's changed my life for the better and now I hope that I can do the same for hers."

 

*****

 

         "Katniss comes first."

         Overhearing Haymitch saying this, Katniss drew to a halt.

         "You're not far behind," Peeta replied, "I've talked enough with the other mentors. Haymitch, if you wind up in-"

         "Don't say it," Haymitch cut him off in a voice that brooked no dissent.

         They were going behind her back somehow and Katniss bristled at it. Why did there always have to be so many secrets? Hadn't she mostly agreed to everything Haymitch had asked of her here, trying to get along with the other tributes and agreeing to go along with him in making some sort of alliance? What else was there then?

         It wasn't as if any of them wanted to be back here like this. Just because she wanted to live didn't mean she wanted to see Haymitch die. And that Haymitch felt the same was one thing she thought was safe to trust in. But at least one of them _was_ going to die. Haymitch had helped them to cheat the rules once and lightning didn't strike the same place twice.

         If it did- if it could- if there were something else… Why wouldn't Haymitch tell her?

 

*****

 

         Finnick was the first person to reach the small central island and the Cornucopia at its center. Although Katniss expected it in a way after taking in the sight of all the water, she still wasn't quite sure how to react to it until he greeted her cheerfully. "Looks like we've got this, huh?" he grinned, pulling a trident from amidst the stockpile there- all weapons.

         "Uh, yeah…" she agreed for at least the time being, catching a bow that he tossed to her. She'd need to grab the quiver, but first-

         Haymitch was still out there, doggedly paddling away. The perpetually drunk guy from District 5 must have kept to his practice better because quick as that he was hauling himself out of the water and reaching a dripping hand toward a stack of swords, then falling backward into the water with a trident in his chest. Haymitch balked at the sight- not the horror of someone who had never seen a friend killed before, but the caution of a person who had managed to live through things that had killed so many others and didn't intend to let it end here.

         "I'll help him," Finnick said, "Cover me, okay?" He didn't wait for Katniss to agree before diving gracefully back into the water. It took him just a few seconds to reach Haymitch, who after a few awkward moments of trying to somehow adapt to Finnick's intervention gave in and allowed himself to be towed.

         The area around them was still clear. Katniss spread her glances around to take in a wider area. Beetee was bobbing about in the water, effectively keeping his head up, but not gaining much ground. She couldn't see Wiress or Seeder. Out of the corner of her eye to the left she could see Cashmere swimming with confident strokes. There were bodies bobbing in the water- old Woof from Eight and the woman from Nine.

         And then she recognized Finnick's mentor working her own way nearer. For all her age, she still had an advantage over a good swath of the other tributes in the water. As Finnick neared the Cornucopia (and Haymitch gave her a jaunty little wave), Katniss moved around the edge of the island to return the favor, kneeling down and offering her hand to Mags once she was within reach to pull her up and where buoyancy would no longer be so effectively making up for some of her infirmities and age. Her murmured sort of thank you was simple enough to understand.

         Haymitch, who only looked slightly more flattering soaking wet today than he had when Katniss had woken him with an impromptu dunking, was searching for something- Someone? Nearby? Far? Katniss wasn't sure. "Get yourself as armed as you need to be and let's get out of here," Finnick said, hoisting Mags onto his back.

         "C'mon, Haymitch," Katniss broke him out of his trance? strategizing? just in time for him to miss the sight of the male addict from Six slip and fall into the water and start flailing about.

         Haymitch looked down and traced the blood on the rock back to its source. "Damn it, Hamlet," his gasp gave way to a sigh. He seemed to draw closer to Katniss and Finnick's speed then, collecting several knives from the veritable armory left to them and moving in the direction of one of the spokes pointing off to an arbitrarily chosen stretch of sand giving way to thick green foliage. And then the sudden movement of another tribute turned him around.

         "Cecelia!" Haymitch called back toward the Cornucopia as the previously sedate-seeming woman rushed wild-eyed at the knives.

         "Haymitch!" Katniss grabbed his arm, not eager to leave Cecelia to what would likely be her death with the Cornucopia cleared of all remaining unharmed tributes but the One-Two alliance, but even less willing to allow Haymitch to be seized by a similarly reckless spirit. Hadn't he told her that just because he was _would_ die for her didn't mean he intended to? Hadn't there been been a sort of hinting in his words and actions leading up to today that there was something in the arena they would need to wait for?

         "Haymitch, you can't," Finnick said firmly, adding a calmer, more logical pressure to Katniss' harried plea. Mags' fretting fingers, touching and twisting her wedding ring, were a silent echo of Finnick's words.

 

         They crossed into the shelter of the jungle. Haymitch forced himself not to look back until, over his shoulder, he saw only plants.

 

 

*****

 

         "Of course for you it's the same token," Finnick looked at the Mockingjay pin attached to Katniss' uniform, "You've made it a popular symbol."

         "I guess for people who've actually had some time to put their Games behind them it makes sense that the same old token might not mean the same thing to you," Katniss sniffed, irritated.

         "Ha, 'put their Games behind them?'" Haymitch laughed, "The memories may not always be the same amount sharp to touch, but your Games are never behind you, sweetheart."

         Remembering how the same pin she was wearing now had been Maysilee Donner's token twenty-five years earlier, Katniss considered the possibility that lately she was a major contributing factor in Haymitch's recollections continuing to pierce him. "What's your token?" she put the question to Finnick to divert the conversation mildly away.

         "My necklace," he showed her, holding it up away from his body by the turquoise cord. At the end of the simple cord was a shell- or rather, a slice of one. Katniss was mostly sure no shell looked like that naturally. "Annie made this for me," Finnick explained ahead of her prying further. Mags reached out and put a hand on Finnick's shoulder, which, dropping the necklace back into place, he covered with his own hand.

         "Annie is…?" Katniss tried to remember and found her choice of prospective answers lacking.

         "Four's most recent victor," Haymitch answered, "And Finnick here brought her home."

         "That's who Mags volunteered in place of," Finnick went on, making clearer something Mags had murmured.

         Katniss demurred, accepting this as she matched Annie's name to a face, although whatever she and her Games had been like still wasn't coming back to her. "My friend Madge gave me this pin," she offered in turn.

         "I think a lot of tokens are given like that, aren't they, Mags?" Finnick mused, while posing his thoughts in a way that specifically included his mentor.

         She smiled. "Wedding ring," she announced distinctly, holding up her left hand.

         "There's some giving for you," Haymitch chuckled.

         "You're wearing some kind of bracelet, aren't you?" Katniss asked, "So, are you the one who breaks the pattern?"

         "Guess I don't have any team spirit." The conversation died off as Haymitch didn't say any more about it and something about his silence was pointed in a way that even Katniss could read as a sign not to push any further. The bracelet was blue and braided. It appeared to have two different textures, like it was made of a short piece of leather and a longer ribbon. It didn't look bad around Haymitch's wrist, but it still seemed more like something that would belong to a girl.

 

*****

 

         Something whirred through the foliage and Katniss raised her bow defensively, notching an arrow and holding it in place as she listened. "Hmm?" Haymitch murmured as he and Mags stirred to attention more slowly.

         "Watch out!" Finnick yelped a moment too late for it to make any difference in stopping some sort of rope-and-ball projectile from wrapping around her bow and ripping it from Katniss' hand.

         A second such weapon- a bola, it came to her- the signature weapon of Dace Liatta as seen in the tape of the 48th Hunger Games- whipped through the air, tearing leaves from a vine in its wake and tangled around the tines of Finnick's trident, though his grip ran stronger, so he staggered, but didn't lose his trident. …And in those Games before, once a target had been caught in the bolas, Dace came in with-

         The serrated knife in his hand glinted as Dace leapt up through the brush, moving high and fast for a man with his sort of paunchy stomach (Katniss hadn't noticed him doing anything too notable during training; he had scored a 6, but his talent was dancing). He went for Finnick, knocking him down, but Finnick held off his knife with the shaft of his weapon and as soon as the element of surprise had left Dace, it looked as if Finnick would be quick to gain the upper hand.

         Katniss backed away slowing, keeping her eyes on the struggle while reaching her fingers through the detritus covering the forest floor for her bow. An ally (Mags, probably, based on their positioning), pushed it into her hand.

         "Lay off!" Haymitch snarled.

         Dace jumped back from Finnick, holding the knife out in front of him as he surveyed his foes. "Akky died because of you!" Dace's jumpy anger settled on the tributes from District 12, "All of us are here because of you!"

         Akane had gone down somewhere on the first day and in the face of their alliance, Katniss didn't see how this could be anything but a suicide run, but that didn't mean Dace didn't intend to try and take someone down with him.

         And he chose her-

         Haymitch flung himself between, taking Dace to the ground. They struggled and Katniss drew back her arm, following their movements to try and take a careful shot. But it was unnecessary as blood sprayed from Dace's neck. Haymitch crawled backward from his opponent as Dace's last action was to point at him accusingly.

         His chest heaved as he stared at Dace dazed on through the ringing of the cannon.

         "You're bleeding," Katniss drew his attention to the wound on his right shoulder, but 'You saved me' were the words that echoed inside her head.

         The pain, which had only distracted Haymitch for a second in the midst of the life or death struggle, flashed up fresh. "Damn," he clutched at his shoulder.

         Finnick and Mags coaxed him into sitting down, Mags pressing a clump of some sort of spongy moss against his shoulder. Katniss watched, feeling shaken and distant, as they worked to temporarily bind his wound. How did one ever know for sure another person was willing to kill for them until they saw that person do it?

 

*****

 

         "Oh! Oh!" Wiress had waved from down the beach and even hugged Katniss when the two groups met up, an occurrence that Haymitch, Mags, and Finnick treated as if it were perfectly natural.

         "Where's Johanna?" Finnick went straight to Blight, voice tense with accusation.

         "Lost l-lost her in the blood rain," Blight answered back, straightening his shoulders in some sort of macho posturing, although there was still blood from that same rain dried into his hair and beard and he sported a good number of scratches, not to mention a black eye, from barreling through jungle that he couldn't see, leaving him not the most intimidating figure around.

         Beetee sat down on the sand and leaned his head in his hands. He didn't look to be in the greatest condition either. Mags sighed and lowered herself down beside him.

         Haymitch stepped between Blight and Finnick, casually pushing them apart. "We lost Poppy," he informed the newcomers, "I mean- We- she wasn't together with us, but-"

         Poppy- that was the female morphling. They had stumbled across her- or rather, stumbled by her, and she'd burst out to aid them in a struggle against giant beetle mutts. She had died in Haymitch's arms, too extensively wounded for their meager supplies to help her. Katniss thought of how she had seen Poppy looking at Haymitch beside the chariots. She thought about Peeta saying that in whatever hierarchy there was, Haymitch would come close after her. It was a hierarchy, perhaps, based on something more than Peeta's personal feelings.

         "So, there are the seven us," Finnick concluded, "And, to the best of our knowledge, Johanna."

         "And Chaff," Haymitch added, "Don't count him out yet."

         "The Careers," Katniss frowned. It stood to reason that, as some of the ablest tributes they would have made it through whatever obstacles they had faced thus far. "…One other?"

         Katniss wasn't surprised that Haymitch had kept track and knew: "Phebe."

         Blight made a small humming noise in response.

         "You know, from Five," Haymitch clarified for Katniss' sake. "I'm not worried about her. She's not going to come out with this many of us left, let alone gathered here together."

 

*****

 

         Blight and Finnick argued in the night. Katniss woke to the noise of Haymitch trying to urge Blight not to go off on his own and losing at his attempt. "Shouldn't let the stuff a kid says get to him like that," Haymitch grumbled, watching Blight trudge away along the sand.

         "You told him to be patient," Katniss whispered when Haymitch sat back down near her, "Which means there's something out there worth waiting for."

         Haymitch considered her words for a moment and rubbed at his aching shoulder. "…Yeah, I did. Because there is."

         "And obviously you're not telling Blight to try and win the Games."

         "Glad you can understand me at least that well," Haymitch laughed. He seemed to appreciate sharing this moment of private conversation with her at a moment when his mood had suffered an extra blow to hasten its darkening.

         "Will there be something there for me if I wait until that same time?"

         Haymitch reached toward her, his hand trembling in the moonlight. Then, gently, he stroked her hair. "Yes."

         "And for you too, right?" she suddenly worried over the prospect of losing Haymitch and having to go on alone.

         "For me too," he promised, "...For everyone."

         For everyone?

         To profit everyone, she considered, what could they do but-- oh, of course Haymitch would, as tricky as he'd been with the forcefield, as she had been with the berries-

                  They'd rise up.


End file.
